Vehicle Research

Tesla's Model 3 Falling Short of Production Goals

January 5, 2018
• by Staff

Photo of the Tesla Model 3 by Paul Clinton.

Tesla only delivered 1,550 Model 3 cars in the fourth quarter of 2017 and won’t hit full scale production of the vehicle until June, despite previous predictions from Tesla, as the company has struggled with production bottlenecks throughout the year.

Tesla shifted its originial goal of producing 5,000 Model 3s per week by the end of last year to March, but was recently changed again to June, according to release from Tesla. In the second half of 2017, Tesla only managed to deliver a total of 1,770 Model 3s since deliveries of began in July.

However, Tesla said it made progress on the bottlenecks, hitting a production rate on its manufacturing lines that extrapolates to over 1,000 Model 3's per week, Tesla said in a release. The company plans to increase its production rate to about 2,500 Model 3 vehicles by the end of the first quarter of 2018.

Fourth quarter production totaled 24,565 vehicles for Tesla, of which 2,425 were Model 3, the company said in a release.

Meanwhile, Tesla delivered 15,200 Model S and 13,120 Model X luxury cars in the fourth quarter, which was the best quarter for combined Model S and Model X deliveries, the automaker said. This represented a 9% increase over the previous quarter, and a 27% increase over the same period in 2016.

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